Vet, family given mortgage-free house in Mission Viejo

Erick and Elizabeth Castro and their two children had been sharing a room in his mother’s Santa Ana home since 2009 after losing their house in Arizona during the economic downturn.

So when Elizabeth, 33, recently crossed the threshold of a fully furnished new home in Mission Viejo, tears welled up in her eyes. She stood to the side with a flushed face, then turned toward her husband and wiped away her tears.

With a sigh of relief and a soft laugh, she and Erick – he on crutches after losing his left leg while serving in Iraq in 2003 – took a walk through the freshly painted Mission Viejo house.

Though both work, the couple have been unable to afford their own place.

That’s where Operation Homefront came in. The Texas-based nonprofit organization provides emergency financial assistance to families of service members and those who were wounded.

In April 2012, the organization began its Homes on the Homefront program, which partners with lenders like Chase, Wells Fargo and Bank of America to find homes throughout the country and give them mortgage-free to in-need veterans or service members, spokesman Nick Kaylor said.

The homes are usually obtained by the banks through foreclosure, renovated and donated to Operation Homefront. About 4,000 applications have been submitted since the program began. The organization has given homes to 170 families, Kaylor said.

The selection process “depends on the need for the homes and the recipient’s financials,” Kaylor said. “There are costs associated because you’re becoming a homeowner. We make sure the people selected have the financial means of maintaining home ownership. A connection to the community is very important … . It sets a comfort level for that recipient.”

Since learning about the program, Erick has been monitoring the organization’s website, hoping for a home to become available in Southern California and praying that if one does, his family gets it.

In March, that prayer was answered when he opened his email to a message from Operation Homefront congratulating him on being the latest recipient of a home – in Mission Viejo.

“We had our house in Arizona, we had a four-bedroom home, we had our furniture and we had to sell most of our furniture,” Elizabeth said. “We worked really hard for all the stuff we had. When I saw this, I was like, ‘Wow! A house.’ And seeing it all furnished makes it all complete.”

Still, Elizabeth said she worried up until the minute she saw the home earlier this month that something might go wrong and they would lose it.

“It was surreal,” she said.

The house on Calle Ganador was fully furnished by nonprofit Santa Ana-based Furnishing Hope with some new and gently used items, founder Beth Phillips said.

Volunteers from the organization also painted the furniture in the children’s rooms and decorated the house to fit the family’s style, which includes orange, red, brown and gold colors.

For the Castros, the house is an opportunity for a fresh start, and a place where their kids can have their own rooms and beds again.

“I can’t believe what they’ve done for us,” Erick said. “Complete strangers coming in and giving us a home and furnishing it for us.”